How the NSA is tracking people right now

Documents received by The Washington Post indicate the National Security Agency is collecting billions of records a day to track the location of mobile phone users around the world. This bulk collection, performed under the NSA’s international surveillance authority, taps into the telephony links of major telecommunications providers including some here in the United States.
The NSA collects this location and travel habit data in order to do ‘target development’ -- to find unknown associates of
targets it already knows about.
To accomplish this the NSA compiles a vast database of devices and their locations. Most of those collected, by definition, are
suspected of no wrongdoing. Officials say they do not purposely collect U.S. phone locations in bulk, but a large number are swept up ‘incidentally.’
Using these vast location databases, the NSA applies sophisticated analytics techniques to identify what it calls co-travelers – unknown associates who might be traveling with, or meeting up with a known target.
HERE IS HOW IT WORKS
NSA collects 5 billion records a day on cellphones

How the NSA is tracking people right nowDocuments obtained by The Washington Post indicate that the National Security Agency iscollecting billions of records a day to track the location of mobile phone users around the world. This bulk collection, performed under the NSA’s international surveillance authority,taps into the telephony links of majortelecommunications providers including some here in the United States.The NSA collects this location and travel habit data to do “target development” — to find unknown associates oftargets it already knows about.To accomplish this, the NSA compilesinformation on a vast database of devices and their locations. Most of those collected, by definition, are suspected of no wrongdoing. Officials say they do not purposely collect U.S. phone locations in bulk, but a large number are swept up “incidentally.”Using these vast location databases, the NSA applies sophisticated analytics techniques to identify what it calls co-travelers — unknown associates who might be traveling with, or meeting up with a knowntarget.HERE IS HOW IT WORKSTargetCo-travelerRead related storyTargetCo-traveler